Everything Must Go

Everything Must Go is a tribute to the corner unit that for so many years was anchored in American malls by corporate bookstores. As these chains folded and closed, what had been bursting bazaars became exhibitions of loss, the empty shelves resembling the picked-clean rib cages of beached whales. Entire job descriptions in the publishing industry have disappeared, along with a previously vibrant middle class of American authors. The phrases of clearance and closure echo with greater warnings to the cultural community at large. Can literature survive without capitalism’s consent? What would true emptiness in American literature look like?